D&D 3E/3.5 3.5 ride the raven.

[end of the world]

hello all.
i had an idea for a new character that i'll be starting tomorrow night, and i wanted to know if the following is feasible.

i'm starting out with a halfling rogue. when he goes up one level, i'm planning to take a level of wizard. i want to get the spells enlarge person and reduce person. and i want to get a raven familiar. (i guess hawk is the better familiar, but i like that the raven can speak a language)

here's my plan. i want to cast enlarge person on myself, as well as the raven via the share spell familiar ability, and then have someone else cast permanency on the raven. i'll wait around until the spell wears off of me, and then cast reduce person on only myself, and have the same person cast permanency on me. i'm figuring with a tiny me and a giant raven, i should be able to ride it.

feel free to tell me it sounds stupid, but also please include whether i've got the rules right, and if you think it's feasible.

thank you.

 

[kitcik]

hello all.
i had an idea for a new character that i'll be starting tomorrow night, and i wanted to know if the following is feasible.

i'm starting out with a halfling rogue. when he goes up one level, i'm planning to take a level of wizard. i want to get the spells enlarge person and reduce person. and i want to get a raven familiar. (i guess hawk is the better familiar, but i like that the raven can speak a language)

here's my plan. i want to cast enlarge person on myself, as well as the raven via the share spell familiar ability, and then have someone else cast permanency on the raven. i'll wait around until the spell wears off of me, and then cast reduce person on only myself, and have the same person cast permanency on me. i'm figuring with a tiny me and a giant raven, i should be able to ride it.

feel free to tell me it sounds stupid, but also please include whether i've got the rules right, and if you think it's feasible.

thank you.

I don't know what rule to quote, but tiny spellcasters are extra badass broken regardless of their familiars. Therefore, if it were possible, everyone would be doing it.

 

[end of the world]

thank you, kitcik, for the quick response.

so your issue is with me being a tiny spellcaster? unless i'm missing something, the rules are pretty straightforward about how the permanency spell works. "reduce person" is one of the spells it specifically mentions that it works on. i don't see any argument against it. and frankly, (though it might just be my lack of imagination) i don't see how it's all that badass broken to be a tiny spellcaster.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

This sounds not only doable, but awesome.

Your Raven will be easier to hit, however, and so easier to die.

But, casting fireballs from 400 feet in the air? Nice.

 

[kitcik]

thank you, kitcik, for the quick response.

so your issue is with me being a tiny spellcaster? unless i'm missing something, the rules are pretty straightforward about how the permanency spell works. "reduce person" is one of the spells it specifically mentions that it works on. i don't see any argument against it. and frankly, (though it might just be my lack of imagination) i don't see how it's all that badass broken to be a tiny spellcaster.

I see that you are right about permanency and reduce person, at least as regards the caster.

I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek on the broken bit b/c everyone tends to say anything good is broken. That said, smaller size is a big advantage to arcane casters who get: AC bonus / hide bonus / easier to get cover & concealment, while losing... essentially nothing since you are not planning to bull rush / trip / overrrun.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Why do you need to enlarge yourself at all to begin with? Just enlarge the raven.

 

[frankthedm]

here's my plan. i want to cast enlarge person on myself, as well as the raven via the share spell familiar ability,

You might not want to cast the spell that way. The spell would stop working on the raven the moment you moved away from the bird for any reason. Permanency wasted just like when the fighter finds out any weapon he drops won't reEnlarge when picked back up.

Why do you need to enlarge yourself at all to begin with? Just enlarge the raven.

Because of the wording of Share Spells, I don't think you can cast Enlarge Person directly on the raven . If Enlarge Person had a target line of "You", it would work . Don't you love how fiddly the rules can be?

Share Spells
At the master’s option, he may have any spell (but not any spell-like ability) he casts on himself also affect his familiar. The familiar must be within 5 feet at the time of casting to receive the benefit.

If the spell or effect has a duration other than instantaneous, it stops affecting the familiar if it moves farther than 5 feet away and will not affect the familiar again even if it returns to the master before the duration expires. Additionally, the master may cast a spell with a target of "You" on his familiar (as a touch range spell) instead of on himself.

A master and his familiar can share spells even if the spells normally do not affect creatures of the familiar’s type (magical beast).

 

[cjosephs1s]

First off kudos for coming up with an awesome concept. I really hope your DM lets you do this. But if I were a DM here are some initial "problems/barriers" I see that you will may want to overcome or think about before taking it to your DM. I give these ideas in the hopes you do get to play this character concept and not to be a fuddy duddy

First this is what I would consider a mount and a flying one at that so your DM may require you to have ranks in ride or handle animal or even a feat that lets you do this. So be prepared for that.

Second the spell Enlarge Person is for humanoids. Now granted you are casting it on yourself, but there are several other precedents that show a difference between humanoids and monsters/animal such as hold monster/person. So while you may have found a gray area in the rules with familiars sharing this spell it is gray and your DM may say its not a person but a monster. So backup plan is to find an Enlarge Monster/animal spell. I checked the Spell compendium but didn't see one but that doesn't mean one doesn't exist in some form. So you might wanna find it. Look at druid spells first as they deal with animals more than any other class.

Third this is only going to take your bird from Tiny to Small and increase his strength to 3. While you will go from Small to Tiny. So here's the next question: Can a small Bird carry a Tiny creature given that birds stats? Remember a bird uses physics to fly, not magic. (I recall the scene from Monty Python's Holy Grail with two swallows and a coconut). The only way I see overcoming this is to get a bigger bird or make yourself smaller and the spells don't stack. There are rules on special mounts in some book. Maybe it there's an expanded list of familiars in like Complete Arcane/mage?

As for permancy it should work fine on you with no problems. Just remember it can be dispelled and you may want to look into how it works in Antimagic zones. After all you every DM loves to put you in a dungoen with a beholder from time to time. I would allow an enlarge monster/animal to work on a bird if it works on a human but I'm not your DM and they may be a "if its not in the book I won't allow it stickler" Enlarge Monster/animal is not specifically listed so on an offnote be prepared for that as well. Also keep in mind your raven has to let you do this. And permancy with its xp cost is going to be expensive at such a low level. Usually its 5 gold per xp point spent. So in addition to the spell cost of a level 5 wiz spell (1125gp) add 2500gp to it....

These are just the things that scream out at me what might stop you from doing it and hopefully I have at least given an idea of how to overcome them. I hope this helped and hopefully your DM just says "Sure sounds cool" and you don't have to any of this. Good luck

 

[blaster]

The way I read it is that what you are suggesting works up until you try and dispel the enlarge person on yourself. Because the Enlarge person spell is a single spell (just shared between 2 targets) when you cast dispel the entire spell is dispelled.

Based on the wording of Enlarge person you may simply be able to enlarge your raven not sure don't have source materials on me atm.

It most definitely sounds AWESOME, but not sure if it works. If it does, its one of those DM's discretion rulings IMO

 

[kitcik]

I thought there might be some glitches in permanently enlarging the familiar with Enlarge Person, but I am not the arcane / familiar expert. I will leave that to others.

I do think that a "tiny' humanoid could ride a "small" bird. Think about the relative size categories of normal humans and most mounts, flying or otherwise. I get the "they fly by physics not by magic" point, but I still think it would work... if you can get the permanently enlarged familiar.